Hugh Jackman 'You need a sense of humour to survive Hollywood'

HUGH JACKMAN makes light of life’s setbacks.

He has had plenty, including being dumped by his mum, aged eight. When he declared he wanted to be an actor, he was beaten up for being a “big sissy”.

He and his wife struggled to have children of their own and they adopted, after which he declared “for me, it’s family first and work second”. But Australian actor Jackman, aged 47, has seen his career soar, while making jokes about himself and any problems he has encountered.

He is the star name in the new and remarkably good movie Eddie The Eagle in which he plays a washed-up former ski star who helps Eddie Edwards in his quest to become an Olympic ski jumper in 1988. “The tone of the film is, basically, being British,” he says.

“It is about having a go, come what may. It is having a laugh with that Full Monty quality. If you are too earnest and take yourself too seriously in Britain it is never a good thing. That’s why I’ve always fitted in here and felt at home.”

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The Oscar-nominated Jackman, who is 6ft 3in tall and has often been compared to a young Clint Eastwood, has learned to laugh at himself. “You have to keep a sense of humour when dealing with Hollywood,” he says. “It’s star-driven and deadly serious.”

When named The World’s Sexiest Man in 2008 in the wake of a string of starring roles as Wolverine in the X-Men movies, he said: “The first thing my wife said to me was: ‘Why didn’t Brad Pitt win?’ I took stick from my mates every day once that award was announced.

“They’ve known me for years and the wind-ups and sledging was non-stop. Much of it was unrepeatable but let me tell you they were not impressed.” Even when he finally met his hero Clint in a queue at a big Hollywood event – “I had studied his Dirty Harry movies for years” – he relates a story against himself.

“I turned around and said: ‘Good day, Mr Eastwood, I am Hugh Jackman.’ He said: ‘Yeah, I know.’ So I said: ’I’ve been told I occasionally look like you in films.’ He looked right past me and said: ‘You’re holding up the line, kid.’”

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Jackman is often compared to his idol Clint Eastwood

But despite Jackman’s refreshing frankness he’s become a big name thanks to a succession of movie hits aside from seven X-Men films and their spin-offs. His lead roles in Kate & Leopold and Swordfish (both 2001), Val Helsing (2004), the epic romantic drama Australia (2008) and the thriller Prisoners (2013) have established him as one of Hollywood’s leading men.

He was even chosen to host the Oscars in 2009, the first non-American in its then 81-year history to do so. “I was scared by that,” he admits. “But I have always agreed to do things that scare me the most. Otherwise, the fear is always going to win. I’ve tried to never give in to it.”

Perhaps that is the secret of his success. The first time he encountered fear was when his mother Grace walked out on the family. “She saw me off to school,” he says. “And when I came back she was gone. Two days later we had a telegram saying she was back in England. It took me years to realise it was not temporary. The Australian life was not for her.”

His father Chris, an accountant originally from Cambridge, brought up Hugh and his two brothers, while his two sisters eventually moved to England with their mother. “I was bullied by my big brother,” he says.

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His mother Grace abandoned the family when they were young

“He would call me a sissy for being interested in acting and dancing. By the time he came around to my way of thinking, I was already doing it on stage. But the whole background and what happened gave me such a ridiculous rage and bravado in those days.

‘I had a lot of pent-up anger back then. I wanted Mum to come home

Hugh Jackman

“I would just bang my head against metal lockers at school – and we had head-butting competitions. There was a place in Sydney called the Warriewood Blowhole. I’d jump off an 80-foot cliff into the water. It had a cave which lead to a blowhole that washes you up on to moss. It gave me a ridiculous thrill.

“I had a lot of pent-up anger in those days. I wanted Mum to come back because I felt that everybody looked at us as being abnormal. I thought, for years, she was going to come back. There was a time, when I was about 12, I thought they were going to get back together.

“They didn’t and I took out that anger and frustration on others. It was survival of the fittest and looking back it was not the happiest of times.”

There was then something of a turning point. He had enrolled in a drama class at college, thinking it would help him become a radio journalist and was working on the front desk of a gym to make money.

“Someone called Annie Semler came in for a sales tour,” he recalls. “About half way through she stared at me long and hard and suddenly said: ‘You are going to be a big star.’

“I made some joke about it but she said: ‘I am a white witch and can see these things. When it happens, it will happen fast.’ I thought to myself: ‘Stop talking and sign these enrolment forms, so I can get a bonus.’” Her predictions eventually came true.

“It sounds crazy but it gave me something to hold on to and think about through the early struggles,” he says. “She was so convinced, I kept on thinking: ‘It will happen fast.’”

And soon enough it did. British actor Dougray Scott was originally chosen as Wolverine in 1999 for the big-budget X-Men film, released a year later. But he was still working on a delayed Mission Impossible II, so director Bryan Singer called in Jackman as a late replacement.

“That film opened doors to me in Hollywood that had always been closed,” he says. “I got Swordfish, with John Travolta after X-Men – and had grown up watching his movies. It was luck and it was fast.”

He also reckons that luck played a part in meeting his Australian actress wife Deborra-Lee Furness, 13 years his senior, on a TV series called Corelli. “She’s a fantastic actress and taught me a lot,” he says.

“I knew within three months she would be the one I would marry. I need my feet to be kept on the ground – and a sense of humour. She even likes me coming home in costume because it makes her feel like she’s having an affair!

Vanity Fair Oscars after party

Mon, February 29, 2016

The best dressed stars of Hollywood attend the Vanity Fair Oscars after party.

“I was once cast as a prisoner with tattoos and she said: ‘Don’t take them off tonight.’ And when I wore a double-breasted white jacket with Nicole Kidman in the film Australia, she asked me to wear that one home too.”

But again there were problems when the couple learned they could not have children of their own. “When we decided we’d had enough of IVF (in vitro fertilisation) treatment, we went ahead with adoption,” he says.

They have Oscar, 15, and Ava, aged 10. “From the moment we started the adoption process, all anxiety went away,” he says. “I never think of them as being adopted. They are our children.

“Deb and I are believers in what you could call ‘destiny’. We feel that things have happened in the way they were meant to. Home life is more important than acting. And to be able to laugh about it all at home is vital to my sanity.”

With his attitude and sense of humour, Jackman is a perfect casting for Eddie the Eagle, alongside Taron Egerton as Eddie. As for his star turns as an action man, he says: “It is nothing compared to the real courage that Eddie Edwards had to show on those ski-jumps.

“You look down from 90 metres and all you can think of is ‘get me out of here’. What I do is make-believe. What he did was for real. That’s why he became a hero. The fans knew he wasn’t the best – but he was certainly the bravest.

“Such courage is never to be over-rated. We can all have difficult times at certain points in life. It is how we deal with them that counts.”